1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the design and manufacture of structures, and, more specifically, to a method and system for measuring the dynamic response of a structure during a machining process.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional structural analysis techniques can be used to manufacture and/or modify a wide range of different structures, including musical instruments, buildings, airframes, and surfboards, among other things. A designer of a structure may implement one or more different structural analysis techniques to design and build the structure to have particular vibrational characteristics. Modern structural analysis techniques involve generating a computer model of the structure. A physical simulation of the computer model can be used to predict the vibrational characteristics of the structure. The design of the structure may then be modified based on the predicted vibrational characteristics of the structure.
One problem with this technique is that physical simulations are inherently inaccurate and cannot predict the vibrational characteristics of a structure with arbitrary accuracy. To solve this problem, designers often test the vibrational characteristics of structures once those structures have already been built. For example, the designer of a guitar may use a microphone to measure the resonant frequencies associated with the guitar. The designer may then make structural modifications to the guitar based on the measured resonant frequencies.
Through this technique, the vibrational characteristics of the structure can be measured directly instead of predicted. However, this approach suffers from certain drawbacks. Specifically, the vibrational characteristics of the structure can only be measured once fabrication of that structure is complete. Oftentimes, re-fabrication or modification of the structure is not possible, and, thus, the vibrational characteristics of the structure cannot be changed to comply with design goals.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a better way to fabricate a structure.